Heavy Snow: A Beautiful Nightmare

St. Louis is on its way to getting over the heavy snow that fell on January 2nd, 2013. While it’s a lovely site to see during the holiday season, and a lovely playground for the children, it’s a lovely nightmare to drive through. Furthermore, it can have negative effects on a home, including causing problems to the roof, gutters, and pipes if left unchecked.

If a home has a slanted roof, then heavy snow can be less of a problem. As the snow builds, it’ll simply slide off once it has become too heavy to hold. If one has a flat roof, however, then depending on the amount of snow falling, a disaster could be mounting. Once a flat roof reaches too much weight due to snow, it will collapse into the home. Of course, one will be looking at thousands upon thousands in repairs to the roof and whatever the roof damaged, on top of whatever the moisture from the snow damaged. The best way to prevent this is to get on the roof and shovel off the snow before it reaches that point. It won’t be fun, but it’ll be necessary if you have a flat roof.

If gutters haven’t been cleaned and maintained, along with proper timely maintenance of the roof, ice dams can form and cause even more problems. Keeping adequate attic insulation and clean gutters can greatly reduce the risk of ice dams forming on the roof. The attic insulation should be properly installed by professionals.

Pipes freezing, or more specifically the water inside them freezing, can cause leaks and water damage in the home. To avoid this be sure to turn off any outside faucets you may have, along with removing any water hoses connected to those faucets. Be sure to turn off the water valve from the inside of the home that supplies water to the outside faucets. If you’re away for an extended period of time, keep the thermostat on at least 60 degrees to keep pipes from freezing inside the home.

Follow these steps, and the risk of heavy snow negatively effecting the home is reduced dramatically. Olneya provides many a restoration service for the home including attic insulation, ice dam repair, and water damage remediation/cleaning/drying.

Call Olneya Restoration Group now at 314-432-6100 or 1-855-4-OLNEYA to see how Olneya can help you. Olneya exists because your home deserves a best friend.